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Aspects of Education 

A Study in the History of Pedagogy 

BY 

OSCAR BROWNING, M. A., 

Kings College, Cambridge. 



EDITED BY 
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Ph.D., 

President of the Industrial Education Association. 









NEW YORK. 

Industrial Education Association. 
september, 1888. 

Twenty Cents. 



Monograph 




PREFATORY NOTE 
The several chapters of this Monograph appeared as separate articles in 
Science, during 1887 and 188S. After careful revision by the author, they are 
now reproduced as a single treatise, and offered as a valuable contribution to the 
critical history of educational doctrines. 



Copyright, 1888, 

BY THE 

Industrial Education Association. 



ASPECTS OF EDUCATION 

HUMANISM. 
I 

Since the revival of learning, secondary education in 
Europe has passed through three phases, which may be 
conveniently called humanism, realism, and naturalism. 
The first is grounded upon the study of language, and 
especially of the two dead languages, Greek and Latin. 
The second is based upon the study of things instead of 
words, the education of the mind through the eye and the 
hand. Closely connected with this, is the study of those 
things which may be of direct influence upon and direct 
importance to life. The third is not, in the first instance, 
study at all. It is an attempt to build up the whole nature 
of the man; to educate, first his body, then his character, 
and lastly his mind. All theories of education which have 
taken a practical form during the last three hundred years 
may be ranged under one or other of these three heads. 
Modern education, as we know it, is an unconscious, but 
not the less a real, compromise between the three ends. 
If we consider each separately, we shall be in the best 
position to understand the system to which they have 
given rise. 

It is important to remember that the reformation in 
Europe happened at the time when the best European 
intellects were directed towards the study of the classics. 
This was not a mere coincidence. The revival of learn- 



132 Aspects of Education. [4 

ing, as it is called, that is, the closer and more intimate 
acquaintance with Greek and Latin texts, which had 
before been known through translations and paraphrases, 
was in itself the principal cause of a reformation. The 
critical spirit thus engendered, the dissatisfaction aroused 
with the teaching of the old religion, the revolt against 
the schoolmen, were also efficient in bringing about 
the reformation. The education of the middle ages was 
encyclopaedic, in aim if not in reality. The seven-years 
course of study — triviutn and quadrivium — was intended 
to comprise every thing that a man need know. Grammar 
taught the whole science of words, dialectics furnished a 
scholar with the whole armor of argument, rhetoric in- 
vested him not only with eloquence in speech but with 
the more graceful gifts of poetry and imagination. The 
science of music, the science of numbers, the power of 
measuring the earth and the heavens, furnished out the 
completely educated man. Hand-books of the middle 
ages intended for students cover the whole ground of 
human knowledge. The ' Tresor' of Brunetto Latini, the 
master of Dante, is divided into three books ; the first 
book into five parts, the last two into two parts each. The 
first book speaks of the origin of all things. After this 
comes philosophy, divided into its two component parts 
of theory and practice. Theory has three great divisions, 
— theology, the knowledge of God ; physics, the knowl- 
edge of the world ; and mathematics, the knowledge of 
the four sciences which form the quadrivium. Practice 
has also three divisions, — ethics, to teach us how to govern 
ourselves ; economics, to teach us how to govern our 
family and our belongings ; and politics, the highest of 
all sciences and the most noble of human occupations, 
which teaches us to govern towns, kingdoms, and nations, 
in both peace and war. As a prelude to these nobler 
sciences stand the preliminary arts of grammar, dialectics, 
and rhetoric. 



5 ] A spects of Educatio n. 133 

It is true that before the reformation this noble plan of 
education had become narrowed and formalized. The 
church had pressed all knowledge into its service, and 
no form of knowledge was highly valued which did not 
contribute to the service of the church. The methods of 
teaching became corrupted : memory was substituted for 
thought. There was a striking contrast between the high 
aims of the best part of the middle ages and the scanty 
attainments of its decadence ; but the shell was still there, 
and as long as that remained, life might be poured into it. 

The renaissance swept away this effort as a dream. 
Scholars brought face to face with Virgil and Horace, 
with Cicero and Plato, were so won by the charm of a 
new and marvellous language, that all their strength was 
spent in explaining and appreciating it. The literary 
results of the renaissance were twofold. On the one hand, 
it aroused the pure enjoyment of literary form and expres- 
sion ; on the other, by stimulating a more exact scholar- 
ship and a more minute philosophy, it urged on the human 
mind to inquiry and to rebellion. 

Just as the stream of this revival was in full flood, the 
reformation came, and separated the culture of Protestants 
from that of the old church. We do not sufficiently 
realize what a wrench this was. We are so accustomed 
to regard Protestantism as a stimulus to independence 
and originality of thought, that we do not consider what 
a loss was at first suffered by the breach with the old 
religion. The whole culture of the middle ages was 
intimately connected with the church. If we take Dante 
as an example, who was steeped in all the knowledge of 
his time, we find that, in every thing he wrote, the ecclesi- 
astical aspect is as prominent as the poetical. There is 
no moment when he has not an equal right to stand 
among the doctors of theology and with the poets of 
Parnassus. Those who broke with the church of Rome 
had to create a culture of their own, and the culture which 



134 Aspects of Education. ' [6 

they created was naturally that which then prevailed in 
the church which they were leaving. 

It was this that gave Melanchthon his importance in the 
reformation, and that earned for him the name of the 
'teacher of Germany.' He was by nature an exact scholar. 
He was well read in both Greek and Latin. He may 
have intended to fill up the other divisions of learning, 
but both his taste and his powers led him to confine 
himself to those departments in which he excelled. He 
said to his school-boys, 'Whatever you wish to learn, 
learn grammar first.' He recommended the study of 
Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Ovid, and Quintilian, and among 
Greek writers, Homer, Herodotus, Demosthenes, and 
Lucian. He recommended the writing of Latin letters 
and Latin verses, with Latin speeches and themes for 
the more advanced students. 

Melanchthon might have intended, if life lasted, to deal 
successively with other branches of the mediaeval curric- 
ulum, but his own tastes and the success of his first efforts 
determined his whole career. He made the study of 
language in all its branches current coin for Protestants, 
but here he stopped. 

Whatever may have been the influence of Melanchthon 
on Protestant schools, there is no doubt that they received 
their form from John Sturm of Strasburg, who was rector 
of Strasburg high school for forty-five years, from 1538 to 
1583. We find his name in the pages of Ascham, and 
it is very probable that his plan of study formed the model 
on which the new college of Westminster was organized, 
but his influence extended not only to England but to all 
Protestant countries. He was a politician as well as a 
school-master; and was in constant correspondence with 
the leaders of the Protestant party all over Europe. His 
great powers were devoted to an elaborate plan for teach- 
ing the Latin language, in all its extent and in its fullest 
elegance, to school-boys. We have a complete account of 



y] Aspects of Education. 135 

the organization of his school, and there is this remarkable 
fact about it, — the boys were not only made to proceed 
from step to step towards final excellence, but they were 
strictly prohibited from taking more than one step at a 
time. In the examinations which were held at the close of 
each year, it was not only a crime to have omitted to 
learn the set subjects for that period, but it was as great 
a crime to have learned more than had been set. Not 
only was the human mind tied and bound within the 
limits of a curriculum, but individual minds were prohibited 
from outstepping the limits of that curriculum in any par- 
ticular. Sturm must be regarded, more than any one else, 
as the creator for Protestants of the classical system of 
English public-school education as it is remembered by 
many who are still living. In this system, boys began 
to learn the Latin grammar before they learned English 
grammar ; they were set to do Latin verses before they 
could write Latin prose. The Latin taught was not the 
masculine language of Lucretius and Caesar, but the ornate 
and artificial diction of Horace and Virgil, and, above all, 
of Cicero. There is no doubt that this system, narrow and 
faulty as it was, gave a good education, so long as people 
believed in it. To know Horace and Virgil by heart 
became the first duty of an English gentleman. Speeches 
in parliament were considered incomplete if they did not 
contain at least one Latin quotation. A false quantity 
was held to be a greater crime than a slip in logical 
argument. Cicero not only influenced the education of 
English statesmen, but had no inconsiderable effect upon 
their conduct. The vanity of self-inspection, the continual 
reference to what is dignified and becoming, coupled with 
a high-minded devotion to duty and a strong if somewhat 
romantic patriotism, distinguished English statesmen in 
the eighteenth century as much as they distinguished the 
great orator of Rome. 



136 Aspects of Edtication. [8 

There is, indeed, much to be said for humanistic training 
as a discipline of the mind. It is true that it deals only 
with words, and its highest efforts are, to decide what 
expression is absolutely best under certain circumstances. 
It is no light thing to render an English sentence, ornate 
and idiomatic, into a Latin sentence which exactly repre- 
sents its meaning and which is equally ornate and idio- 
matic. It is difficult to analyze the subtle tact by which a 
scholar decides a particular reading in a particular passage 
to be right and all other readings to be wrong, or by 
which he determines one Latin or Greek verse to be so 
decidedly superior to another, that their comparative merit 
admits of no argument or hesitation. Any number of 
competently trained scholars would agree together in a 
matter of this kind, and yet it is entirely beyond argument 
that not one of them, if cross-examined in a witness-box, 
could give reasons for his judgment which would satisfy a 
jury. The question is determined by the most delicate 
weighing of probabilities, by a subtle tact similar to that 
by which the most complicated operation of an artificer is 
carried on. Is not this the very process which we have to 
apply to the most difficult problems of life ? The organon 
of mathematical reasoning is a far clumsier and blunter 
instrument than the organon by which humanistic difficul- 
ties are decided, while the organon of scientific reasoning 
is clumsier and blunter still. Mathematics deals for the 
most part with things which can be accurately appre- 
hended by the mind. It aims, more than anything else, at 
exactness, and although in its higher branches it admits 
hypotheses of probability, yet its principal object is cer- 
tainty. Science goes farther than this ; it not only admits 
certainty of apprehension, but it claims that it should 
touch, see, and handle the matters with which it deals. 
Few results can stand this coarse analysis. If biology 
and chemistry refuse to acknowledge any truth which 
cannot be demonstrated to the senses, they put out of their 



g] Aspects of Education. 137 

reach those truths which are the most important to know, 
and which can be arrived at by probability alone. If 
mathematics admits of demonstration which shall give 
a clear proof to anyone who asks it, it removes from 
its sphere those judgments which rest upon the trained 
instinct of experts, and which can only be made clear to 
one who has undergone a similar training. 

Regarded from this point of view, humanism was no 
bad preparation for active life or for devotion to any other 
study. It had the advantage of being small in compass, 
and of limits which were easily ascertained. Devotion to 
humanistic studies, properly understood, did not exclude 
application to other studies which might be considered 
more grave and important. William Pitt, chancellor of the 
exchequer at twenty-two, prime minister at twenty-four, 
was a first rate humanist, as he was an excellent mathe- 
matician ; but this did not prevent him from being an 
admirable orator, a close reasoner, a profound student of 
history and politics, and a political economist far in ad- 
vance of his time. Much as we may regret that education 
in Protestant countries, especially in England, Holland, 
and Sweden, was narrowed by the humanistic tendency, 
we must not refuse to give that training all the credit 
which it deserves. 

II 

Humanism, in the hands of Sturm and his followers, 
was at least intelligible and masculine. Although it was 
founded upon a narrow basis, its aims were clear and 
honest. In the next two hundred years, humanistic teach- 
ing was to undergo an influence of a very different charac- 
ter, which, maintaining the outward show, changed the 
substance and turned what was a modified blessing into a 
decided curse. The Jesuit schools founded in the sixteenth 
century obtained so much vogue in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth, that they influenced the whole of European 
education, Protestant as well as Catholic. They had one 



138 Aspects of Education. [10 

title to respect, and one only. They were the first to 
bring the individual teacher face to tace with the individual 
pupil. Whatever their objects may have been, and what- 
ever were the ends for which they intended to use their 
influence, there can be no doubt that they did from the 
first what they still do, — attempt to study the workings 
of each individual mind and the beat of each single heart. 
Here their merit ends. They desired that the hearts of 
their pupils should be devoted to them, and not to human- 
ity, and that their minds should never move out of the 
limits which they themselves should fix. Humanism lay 
ready to their hands. Here was a subject on which infinite 
ingenuity might be expended and endless time wasted. 
To become a complete master of the style of Cicero, 
Horace, or Ovid, might take a lifetime ; yet the result 
was showy: few could understand its merits or the pro- 
cesses by which it was reached. To declaim on speech- 
day a long alcaic ode on the immaculate Virgin, or to turn 
the Song of Solomon into the language of Ovid's 'Art of 
love,' was an achievement which all might admire. The 
Jesuits were the inventors of that bane of humanistic edu- 
cation, the exaggerated reverence paid to Latin verse 
composition. What can be a worse training for the human 
mind? A mind is called well trained in language when 
it can conceive accurately the idea which it wishes to 
express, and can express that idea in language which no 
one can misunderstand. The whole theory of original Latin 
verse composition is opposed to this. The pupil is set to 
write a copy of verses on a set subject, be it spring or 
winter, autumn or summer. His notion of what he should 
say is very hazy, but under pressure he will write down 
twenty so-called ideas for twenty lines of Latin verse. 
To expand these he will have recourse to his gracilis, a 
book which the Jesuits have the credit of inventing. He 
will there find so-called synonyms of the Latin words he 
has chosen, which cannot really express the same sense, 



ii] Aspects of Education. 139 

for in any language very few pairs of words are to be found 
with precisely the same meaning. If his synonyms are 
insufficient for the purpose, he will fill up the line with 
epithets chosen from the gradus, not because they are just, 
or appropriate, or needful, but because they scan. If these 
are not enough, his handbook will furnish him with phrases 
of greater length, bearing more or less upon the subject, 
and even with entire verses which he may introduce, so far 
as he can do so without fear of detection. To spend much 
time on this process is to play and juggle with the human 
mind, to make pretence at thought when there is no 
thought at all, to mark time instead of marching, to work a 
treadmill that grinds no corn, to weave a web which must 
be perpetually unravelled ; yet in the latter half of the 
eighteenth century we see original Latin verses the chosen 
task of school-boys and a too frequent pastime for 
statesmen. 

Let us not condemn all composition in dead languages. 
To turn the masterpieces of modern poetry into an exact 
Greek or Latin equivalent may be the worthy occupation 
of the best-trained scholars. It has more than once hap- 
pened that the copy has been more poetical, more musical 
more worthy, than the original itself. Nor is imitation of 
any literature which we are studying to be despised. The 
Italian sonnets of Arthur Hallam, the French lyrics of 
Swinburne, if not genuine poetry, are at least precious 
fruits of the poetical mind. But if these fruits are to 
be produced at all, it is necessary that they should be 
produced without compulsion. Train your scholar in the 
best examples of Greek and Latin, let him study Virgil, 
Homer, and the Greek tragedians night and day, show 
him all the poetry they contain, let him compare them 
with the best productions of his native tongue, and the 
probability is, that, if he has any creative faculty, he will 
begin to imitate and will write Greek and Latin verses 
without coercion. But set him down on a form with fifty 



140 Aspects of Education. [12 

other boys, and bid him write poetry on a subject for 
which he does not care, in a language which he does not 
understand and which is often unfitted to the thoughts 
which he has to express, guide him by mechanical rules, 
and assist him with mechanical handbooks : you will then 
find that what ought to have been a pleasure has been a 
barren toil, and that his mind is dulled by the effort. 
Even at the present day, after all that has been written 
against Latin verses by those who are most fit to judge, 
they hold an inordinate place in English classical edu- 
cation, and give us good reason to pass the strongest 
condemnation on the sect which introduced them. 

The falseness of Jesuit principles of education goes fur- 
ther than this. They can best be judged on the great 
annual festival when the parents are invited to see the 
triumphs of their children. Speeches in different languages 
are delivered by children of various ages, often with a 
pathos that draws tears from those who hear them : this is 
a good part of their training. The head boy reads out the 
list of those who have gained prizes. After reciting a 
string of names, he suddenly pauses thus attracting the 
attention of all present. The prefect of studies, who stands 
behind him, comes to his rescue, and utters the boy's own 
name, which he has been too modest to pronounce himself. 
Had he repeated it among the others, it would have at- 
tracted no attention, but the modesty which avoided the 
appearance of self-laudation was used to extort the ap- 
plause of the multitude. 

The boys are examined viva voce. Nothing can be 
more fair. Any one at random is asked to take a Virgil or 
Sophocles, to submit any passage for translation, and to 
ask any questions he pleases. If the examiner does his 
work honestly, he soon finds what a mistake he has made. 
Ke submits a passage for translation. The boy makes a 
mistake ; the examiner stops him. The boy blunders ; 
the examiner insists upon a correct translation, which 



13] Aspects of Education. 141 

takes a long time in coming. There s general discomfort 
and confusion. The whole sympathy of the audience is 
with the good-looking ingenuous youth on the platform, 
and not with the bald-headed pedant who is examining 
him. The examiner asks a question ; the boy answers it 
wrong. As often as the examiner rejects the answer given 
to him, so often does the impatience of the audience arise 
against the stupid man who does not know how to ask 
questions that the boys can answer. 

If the Jesuits had no faults of their own, they at least 
deserve the condemnation of posterity for suppressing 
their rivals the Jansenists, who offered to France the best 
opportunity of receiving a humanistic education devoted 
to the noblest ends. The object of the distinguished men 
who founded the little schools of Port Royal was exactly 
the opposite to that of their Jesuit rivals. They desired to 
make the moral character of their pupils strong and inde- 
pendent, and to train their intellects from the first in the 
severe studies of close and logical reasoning. In the 
individual attention they gave to their pupils, they were 
superior even to the Jesuits. The whole number of children 
that passed through their schools was small ; and no teach- 
er was allowed to have charge of more than five or six, 
while the masters were thus able to study the characters 
and capacities of their pupils in the minutest details. Pains 
were always taken to avoid undue familiarity. Between 
the pupils themselves, as between their professors, there 
was to reign a dignified and temperate courtesy, removed 
equally from sickly sentimentality and from rough and 
boisterous good-fellowship. The grammar of Port Royal 
was not a collection of rules to be learned by heart, but a 
treatise on logic, which forms the basis of all grammar. 
Where rules or examples had, of necessity, to be learned, 
they were, in disregard of precedent, placed in such a form 
as to be most easily remembered. The Jansenists were guil- 
ty of another innovation which gave a great handle to their 



142 Aspects of Education. [14 

opponents. They taught the dead languages of antiquity 
from the living tongue of their own France. What impie- 
ty, said the Jesuits, thus to vulgarize studies which ought 
never to be presented to us without solemn and even 
sacred associations ! We hear little or nothing in the Port 
Royal schools of the cultivation of Latin verses. The air 
which they breathed was too bracing for that trivial exer- 
cise. On the other hand, they did great service to the 
study of Greek. It is true that the Jesuits maintained 
Greek as a prominent study in their schools, which the 
University of Paris had been compelled to surrender by 
the clamor of parents. Yet the 'Garden of Greek roots,' an 
attempt to popularize the study by imparting the most 
necessary knowledge of Greek in French verses, remained 
for a long time a standard school-book, and was used 
for that purpose by so careful and exact a scholar as the 
historian Gibbon. If the Jansenist schools had been suf- 
fered to exist, they might have profoundly affected not 
only the course of study in France, but the minds and 
characters of Frenchmen. European nations, in following 
the French models of excellence which reigned without 
dispute before the French revolution, might have had a 
more masculine type held up for their admiration. This, 
however, was not to be ; and French literature, impregnated 
with Ciceronianism, had been but slightly touched with 
the chastening influences of Hellenic studies or of logical 
precision. 

Humanism has undergone many changes in the last 
generation, and it is difficult to forecast its future. The 
position which it held in education after the revival of 
learning was due to two opinions about it, which were 
believed very generally, but not always very consistently. 
On the one hand, it was thought to be the best gymnastic 
for the mind, the best mechanical exercise which the 
human faculties could be put through. On the other hand, 
the literatures of Greece and Rome, which were the sub- 



15] Aspects of Education. 143 

ject-matter of humanism, were regarded as absolutely the 
tilings best worth study, not only from their intrinsic 
merit, but from their forming the best introduction to all 
modern studies. Not many years ago modern geography 
was taught in the most distinguished of English schools 
by what was called a comparative atlas and a comparative 
geography-book. Ancient geography was taught first as 
the thing most needful, and modern names were only dealt 
with as the correlatives of ancient ones. A good English 
style was supposed to be acquired from the study of 
classics. Latin verses formed the best introduction to 
English poetry ; Latin themes were the best method of 
learning all general information. Even now at our uni- 
versities many people would maintain that the science of 
modern statesmanship could not be better learned than 
from Aristotle's 'Politics.' Both these points of view have 
suffered rude shocks. Undoubtedly from considerations 
which were indicated above, Greek and Latin, and Greek 
especially, do form an admirable training for the mind. 
Latin grammar is more precise, more logical, and in these 
respects harder, than the grammars of modern languages. 
The Greeks were probably the most gifted people who 
ever lived, and their language was adapted in a wonder- 
ful manner to express most perfectly their most subtle 
thoughts. To a mature scholar, who recognizes every 
shade of his meaning, Thucydides will appear untrans- 
latable. The words as he puts them down, whether 
grammatical or not, express precisely what he intends to 
say, with a vividness and a directness which cannot be 
surpassed. To express all that he would tell us in English 
would require long clumsy paraphrases, and even these 
would not express it altogether. The effort made by a 
modern mind to follow in its subtlest folds every sinuosity 
of the thought of Plato or Aristotle is in itself a very valu- 
able training ; but to profit by this training, a considerable 
standard in the languages must have been reached, and as 



144 Aspects of Education. [16 

years go on, the number who reach this standard is fewer 
and fewer. The foundations have been undermined, boys 
and parents avoid the trouble of learning dead languages, 
and teachers are ready to escape the trouble of teaching 
them. The result is, that only the chosen minority are in 
the position of profiting by a training which was once 
universal ; and these have such distinguished and appre- 
hensive intellects that they would almost always make a 
training for themselves. 

If humanism has suffered by the growth of a disbelief in 
its powers as a gymnastic, there is no sign that its intrinsic 
worth is rated less highly than it was Indeed, as we 
begin to appreciate more exactly the necessary elements 
of culture, our respect for humanism grows greater. We 
are told that there are two great elements in modern 
civilization, — Hebraism and Hellenism. There is no fear 
at present that the first will not be well looked after. No 
Christian country is without an efficient church establish- 
ment ; and the training of the clergy in all their several 
degrees, who are the chosen guardians of Hebraism, is 
more extensive and more satisfactory than in previous 
generations. Take away Hebraism, and the most valuable 
part of our intellectual furniture which remains is Hellen- 
ism. That can only be preserved by the combined efforts 
of all those who are indebted to it, and who have learned 
its value. This is the special function of schools and 
universities. It is remarkable that each attack made on 
the study of Greek has produced some new effort to make 
the study of Hellenism more general. The establishment 
of the English Hellenic society was the direct result of an 
attempt to exclude Greek from the entrance examinations 
of the university. The growth of science has been coin- 
cident with the revival of acted Greek plays, both in 
England and America. The dead languages which were 
once reverenced as a training are now valued for what 
they can teach us ; and scholarship is defined, not as the 



ly] Aspects of Education. 145 

art of interchanging in the most ingenious manner the 
idioms of the Greek, Latin, and English languages, but as 
the calling-back to life of the Hellenic world in all its 
branches. Hellenism need not always mean the study 
of Greek life and thought. Egyptian culture preceded 
Hellenic culture. The Greeks went to study in the schools 
of Egypt, as the Romans frequented the universities of 
Greece, and as the English visit those of Germany. As 
the learning of the Egyptians, whatever it may have been, 
has been absorbed for our purposes partly by Hellenism 
and partly by Hebraism, so Hellenism itself may be 
absorbed, so far as it deserves to be, by modern literature. 
One who knew Milton by heart would be no poor Hebraist, 
and he who possessed the whole of Goethe would be no 
mean Hellenist. But this time has not yet arrived, if 
humanism suffers now from a slight obscuration, due to its 
unfortunate attempt to claim too much mastery over the 
human mind ; yet there is no fear of its being materially 
obscured, and the assistance which it may yet render the 
human race, in her search after the good, the beautiful, 
and the true, should command the sympathy, and stimu- 
late the efforts, of every man to whom those objects are 
dear. 

REALISM. 

Shelley, once writing to Godwin, expressed his surprise 
that so much time and thought had been given to the 
teaching of words, and so little to the teaching of things. 
Under the influence of Sturm and the Jesuits, humanism, 
or classical education, degenerated into a mere study of 
words. Little attention was paid to what was said : the 
chief point was how it was said. Cambridge undergradua- 
tes thirty years ago, taught by the most distinguished 
scholar in the university, when they read a Greek play or 
a Latin poem, heard little about the plot, or the allusions 
or their relations to modern writings of the same kind. 



146 Aspects of Education. [18 

Attention was exclusively paid to readings, to the delicate 
variations in the meanings of words, to grammatical forms, 
to letters and accents ; yet the teacher was a man full of 
love of English and other literatures, and steeped in the 
knowledge of them. The best scholars turned out of 
the university were surprised to find, as a result of their 
training, how little they knew of the literary masterpieces, 
which they had spent a great portion of their lives in 
learning to construe. The main aspects of ancient life 
were entirely unknown to them, unless accident had led 
them to learn them. Yet the teaching of things rather 
than words had been advocated by great educationalists, 
both abroad and in England. 

The typical realist in education is Comenius. His whole 
life was devoted to the improvement of educational meth- 
ods. He was one of the first to appeal to the eye as an 
instrument of instruction ; but his most important work 
was the ' Great didactics,' a complete treatise on the art of 
education. The central idea of this book was that the 
education of every man should follow his natural growth. 
Take the whole circle of sciences with which the mature 
man can be acquainted, — arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, 
ethics, politics, and many others, — what are these but 
names for departments of knowledge, which the human 
mind creates for itself ? If we take away from them their 
repulsive appellations, and consider them in their simplest 
elements, we find that they are nothing but what the child 
learns from its earliest infancy. 'Metaphysics' is a hard 
word, yet what is it except the science of ideas as appre- 
hended by the mind ? A child four years old was once 
lying in bed, recovering from an illness, when its father 
and mother came to the bedside. The child described the 
feeling it had in its leg. The father said, "That is pins 
and needles." The child thought to itself, " How can 
my father make so rash a statement ? What he means, 
expressed in accurate language, is, that what I am describ- 



19] Aspects of Education. 147 

ing sounds to him as the sensation which, if he felt, he 
would call pins and needles ; yet how can he tell that the 
sensation which I am now feeling is the same as that 
which he denotes by that name?" There was present to 
the child's mind the whole problem of the relativity of 
knowledge, yet that has sometimes been found hard even 
for men to grasp. In the same way, what is the knowledge 
of natural phenomena, such as fire, rain, and snow, but the 
knowledge of physics? What is the ability to find his way 
about his own village but the rudiments of v geography ? 
What are his family annals but the beginnings of his- 
tory ? The government of the household would teach him 
domestic economy, the administration of his native town 
would teach him politics, the rules of simple behavior 
would teach him ethics : take away the bugbear of repul- 
sive nomenclature, and you will find every science can be 
studied in its simplest elements from the beginning of life. 
Comenius regarded the sciences which were accessible 
to human knowledge as an ever-widening circle, to be 
learned by child, boy, and man in the measure for which 
their strength is adapted. When it is possible in this 
way, by following the course of nature itself, to arrive at 
the knowledge of every thing that is worth knowing, why 
should we confine the growing mind in the trammel of 
mere language ? From the mother's school the child would 
pass to the national school ; one existing in every house, 
the other in every parish. From this he will go, as years 
advance, to the gymnasium, which is to be found in every 
large town ; and thence, if strength admits, to the univer- 
sity, which exists in every province. 

The didactic theories of Comenius met with a strange 
fate. His manhood was nearly coincident with the thirty- 
years' war, which made educational experiments impos- 
sible in Germany. He came to England just as the civil 
war was breaking out. That did not prevent his proposals 
from attracting the attention of the parliament ; and they 



148 Aspects of Education. [20 

would have given him for his experiments some large 
college, either in town or country, had not political 
troubles made it impossible to do so. He was taken up by 
the Protestant powers of Europe, partly because they rep- 
resented the greater spirit of progress, and partly because 
they were opposed to the exaggerated humanism of the 
Catholics. Had he lived a hundred years earlier, the effect 
of his teaching would have been far more powerful. Had 
Comenius, instead of Melanchthon, been the preceptor 
of Germany, Catholics and Protestants might have been 
divided in education, as they were in religion, but the 
world would have been enriched by a training of wider 
scope and greater possibilities. Thwarted by the political' 
troubles of his time, his teaching never arrived at its full 
development, and had little effect upon the world until it 
received a new shape at the hands of Pestalozzi and 
Froebel. 

The learning of things instead of words found a powerful 
advocate in England in the person of John Milton. His. 
'Tractate on education' is one of the most gorgeous 
dreams of a complete training ever conceived and elabora- 
ted by an educational theorist. He admits that it is right 
to learn the languages of those people who have at any 
time been most industrious after wisdom, but he asserts 
that language is only the instrument which conveys to 
us things useful to be known. " Though a linguist," he 
says, " should pride himself to have all the tongues that 
Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the 
solid things in them as well as the words in lexicons, 
he were not so much to be esteemed a learned man 
as any yeoman or tradesman, competently wise in his 
mother dialect only." He defines a complete and generous 
education as that which fits a man to perform justly,, 
skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private 
and public, of peace and war. The Latin language, taught 
with the Italian pronunciation, is to lay the foundation of 



2i] Aspects of Education. 149 

good morality, "infusing into their young breasts such an 
ingenuous and noble ardor as would not fail to make 
many of them renowned and matchless men." Varro and 
Columella are to teach, not only Latin, but agriculture, — 
how to recover the bad soil and to know the waste that is 
made of good. Aristotle and Pliny are to give instruction 
in science. Mathematics, comprising arithmetic, geom- 
etry, astronomy, and trigonometry, have a separate course 
of their own, from which progress is to be made to 
fortification, architecture, engineering, and navigation. 
Theoretical studies in these and other similar branches 
are to be supplemented by practical training given by 
experts in the several pursuits. Not until this broad foun- 
dation of theory and practice has been laid are the pupils 
to read the works of those poets who treat of country lore. 
The next stage is to lay the foundations of philosophy and 
ethics, the knowledge of virtue and the hatred of vice. 
Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, are to be read, not for 
their language only, but for the ethical teaching which 
they contain. After ethics succeeds rhetoric, to form the 
tongue and the imagination of the future orator. Italian is 
used to give a soft and melodious pronunciation ; Greek 
and Latin tragedies, with the humanists the food of school- 
boys, are reserved for the completion of the rhetorician's 
art. To this succeeds the study of politics, learned from 
the great masters of law from Moses to Justinian, con- 
tinued down to the laws of our own constitution. Sundays 
are now to be spent in the higher branches of theology, 
and the scriptures are to be read in their original tongues. 
Not till now comes the study of history and poetry, mixed 
with a certain amount of logic ; and then, and not till 
then, are the scholars permitted to write for themselves. 
Original composition, instead of being, as among the 
Jesuits, the principal mental discipline even of young 
children, is to be reserved until the mind has been thor- 
oughly penetrated both with matter and with manner. 



150 Aspects of Education. [22 

A large portion of the proposed training is devoted to 
exercise. "In those vernal seasons of the year," says the 
poet, "when the air is calm and bracing, it were an injury 
and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her 
riches and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. 
At this time the pupils might ride out with prudent and 
staid guides to all places of strength and commodities of 
building, and of soil for towns and tillage, harbors and 
ports for trade." Milton, in this vision of the future, does 
not intend to sketch a scheme of popular education, but 
one suited for select pupils and select teachers. It is 
strange that the advice of one who was himself a school- 
master should have been so much neglected by the brothers 
of his profession. This may be explained by the fact that 
Milton wrote for an age in which Latin was the universal 
language, the common means of communication between 
scholars. The troubles of the seventeeth century left little 
room for the application of his theories ; and, when society 
had become sufficiently settled to adopt them, Latin had 
lost its place in the world of learning, and the standard of 
humanism had been raised aloft by the Jesuits. 

The establishment of realism as an integral part of 
education is due to the French revolution, and it is insep- 
able from the name of Pestalozzi. There could not be 
a greater contrast than between Milton and Pestalozzi. 
Milton's educational scheme was derived, on the one hand 
from his poetical imagination, and on the other from his 
scorn for the shallowness and frivolity of some of the 
statesmen with whom he lived. Pestalozzi learned the 
principles of his art in the care of poor orphans and in 
the hard experience of his own checkered life. Milton's 
plan, like that of Plato, was adapted for a select number 
of rulers. Pestalozzi's plan was framed for the benefit 
of very little children, and has only been gradually 
seen to be applicable to all departments of education. 
In the year 1798, the village of Stanz, near the lake 



23I Aspects of Education. 151 

of Lucerne in Switzerland, was burned by the French, 
and a great part of the inhabitants murdered, because 
they would not receive the constitution offered to them 
by the directory of Paris. The children who escaped 
the slaughter were left homeless and orphans, and 
Pestalozzi was asked to take care of them. He estab- 
lished himself in a large deserted convent, deprived of all 
means of sustenance. He lived with the children by day, 
and slept with them by night, sharing the poor food which 
could be got together for their common support. It was 
by this close contact with the child-mind that Pestalozzi, 
almost himself a child, learned some of the deepest secrets 
of education. No traveller should look down from the 
Rhigi upon the valley where Stanz lies, without reveren- 
cing it as the birthplace of educational ideas which are 
destined to revolutionize our system of training. Yet when 
I rang, a few years ago, at the convent-gate, the good 
sister of charity who opened the door for me had never 
heard of the name of Pestalozzi, and knew nothing of the 
great Christian work which had been carried on within her 
walls. The central idea of Pestalozzi was to train the 
mind through the senses. Humanism, dealing with words 
alone, had depended mainly upon the memory. Children 
learned long lists of Latin and Greek nouns, long rules of 
Latin and Greek construction. Pestalozzi had no books. 
One of his best materials for instruction was an old piece 
of tapestry embroidered with animals. The children were 
taught to see, to touch, to taste, to smell, and to report 
exactly what their senses had taught them. By ingenious 
methods the first simple operations of the senses were 
made to lead insensibly to the higher operations of the 
mind. Milton had recommended that the rudiments of 
mathematics should be taught playing, as the old manner 
was. Pestalozzi made this plan a reality. Pestalozzi 
taught us to make the fullest use of a keen observation 
of young children, of their quick apprehension of what 



152 Aspects of Education. [24 

immediately surrounds them, and of their surprising power 
of retaining what really interests them. He also taught 
us to follow, in the most loving and even servile manner, 
the growth of each child's mind, and of the child-mind 
as a whole. Yet it cannot be said that he was very 
successful as a practical teacher, and many who have 
posed as his disciples have been great failures. To force 
children by compulsion to learn many things by heart 
is the easiest, and it is also the most stupid and the most 
unfruitful, method of education. To follow the growth 
of their minds, and to adapt the training of each instant 
to their needs, require the patience of a saint and the 
insight of a philosopher, and these qualities are seldom 
found. 

Froebel may be regarded as one who has worked out 
with great minuteness and success a particular part of 
Pestalozzi's teaching. The kindergarten system, as it is 
called, rests upon the assumption that the senses of a 
child are to be first dealt with, and that it is by their 
means that the intelligence can be best aroused. Froebel 
starting with the care of very young children, was able 
to reduce their education to something like a system. 
They are taught by degrees to see clearly form and color ; 
to imitate them in various ways ; to distinguish by the 
touch hard and soft, cold and hot ; to train their ears to 
delicate sounds, and their mouths to refined and expressive 
speech. Their restlessness is utilized for social drill and 
dances. A child is encouraged to imitate just what he 
understands, and no more. It is impossible to see a 
kindergarten class, even when composed of the youngest 
gutter children, without feeling that this must in time 
be recognized as the only fit education for the infant-mind. 

But it is a mistake to suppose that the principles of 
Froebel are applicable only to the training of very young 
children. It is as natural for the brain to grow and to 
exert itself as it is for the arms rind leirs to stretch them- 



25] Aspects of Education. 153 

selves. Our inherited traditional methods of education 
are too often the swaddling-clothes of the mind, which 
impede its growth rather than assist its development. In 
schools higher than the kindergarten we have yet to learn 
that pleasure is a far more potent instrument of training 
than pain. Many teachers value lessons for their very 
harshness and repulsiveness, and take no pains that the 
mind should pass easily from the known to the unknown 
with ever-growing delight and satisfaction. Far too much 
stress is laid on mere memory. Memory depends on 
interest. Children will recollect accurately whatever has 
deeply roused them at any time. If we secure interest, 
memory will follow of itself. Again : schools spend far 
too much time on a set course of study. Pestalozzi and 
Froebel learned all they knew by the slavish following 
of the growing mind. It is probable that in no two 
minds do the faculties develop in precisely the same order. 
That curriculum is best which is adapted to the greatest 
number of minds, but no curriculum could be adapted to 
all minds. Just in proportion as the course of study laid 
down in school is rigid and unalterable, so far will it fail 
to reach a large number of those for whom it is intended. 
Just as, in elementary education, payment by results is 
opposed to the whole spirit of Pestalozzi's and Froebel's 
teaching, so in our higher education we cannot obtain the 
highest level of instruction unless we assign a lower place 
to examinations. 

There is no fear that in the present day realistic edu- 
cation — the learning of things instead of words — will be 
neglected. There may, indeed, be a danger lest we should 
teach things which are not the best worth learning, lest 
we should waste on mechanical arts or on the lower 
branches of science, powers which ought to be applied to 
the highest products of the human mind. Goethe tells us 
that Wilhelm Meister, a dreamy enthusiast, took his son 
Felix to be taught in the Paedagogic Province. On re- 



154 Aspects of Education. [26 

turning a year afterwards to see how he was getting on, 
he could not at first find him ; but, as he was in an open 
field, he saw in the distance a cloud of dust. The dust 
developed into a troop of horses ; and out of this troop 
galloped the young Felix, riding a white bare-backed 
steed, from which he threw himself and fell at his father's 
feet. The rulers of the Province explained, that, having 
tried Felix at every thing else, they found that he was 
most fit for breaking horses, and therefore set him that 
task. We now see Goethe's dream realized, not only in 
technical education, but in the schools which are growing 
up over England for the training of young colonists. A 
boy is taken at fourteen, and taught how to build a house, 
to make his furniture, to manage a farm, to navigate a 
boat. This is realistic education with a vengeance ; and 
the same might be said of mere technical training, where 
it does not rest upon the basis of general culture. Yet the 
extravagances to which this side of education may run are 
slight, compared with those which have for so many years 
formed the bane of humanism. Some exaggeration is 
required to redress the balance. It is difficult to secure 
improvements in education, and it is almost impossible 
to revolutionize an educational system. Educational theo- 
rists write as if a single child, willing to be taught every 
thing were dealt with by a teacher able to impart every 
thing. The reality is very different. Children are taught, 
not singly, but in masses ; and in a crowd the standard of 
conduct is generally that of the worst rather than that of 
the best. To secure all the attention of a large number of 
children needs considerable gifts, and to force a large 
class into active co-operation with the instructor is what 
few teachers can do. Again : a small proportion only of 
teachers have any special gifts of insight, liveliness, or 
imagination. They can only carry out the methods in 
which they have been trained. Once more : every tradi- 
tional system is protected by a large number of means and 



27] Aspects of Education. 155 

appliances for study which have grown up under its reign. 
The very perfection of the school-books makes it easier to 
study classical literatures and Greek and Roman history 
than any similar department of more modern date. The 
passive resistance of pupils, the absence of useful aids, 
the want of enterprise in teachers, — all militate against 
the substitution of a rational education, such as Comenius 
would have given, for the complete and elaborate drill in 
the arts of expression which we owe to Sturm and the 
Jesuits. America has been less spoiled than Europe by 
the influence of petty traditions ; and it is there, perhaps, 
that we may look for the rise of a training which will 
begin with the kindergarten, will be inspired in its higher 
branches by the enthusiasm of Milton, will always pierce 
through the veil of words to the substance which the 
words are intended to convey, and, while training to the 
full the senses of the individual and his mechanical powers, 
will not fail to set the highest value on the best products 
of the human mind, and will never, in the pursuit of 
material science, undervalue the far dearer treasures of 
poetry and philosophy. 

NATURALISM. 
The two aspects of education which we have already 
discussed, have reference to the different ways of training 
the intellect. They are, however, both liable to degenerate 
into pedantry. With regard to the study of language, 
this statement needs little proof. It is difficult, under any 
circumstances, to reconcile an education which is merely 
linguistic with the preparation of the active business of 
life. Perhaps the best example of a such a training was 
the rhetoric of the Romans. Quintilian's famous treatise 
on education described the training of the orator, and it 
requires some reflection to discover how so narrow and 
restricted a course can be co-extensive with all that is 
demanded by the public service. It might, however, be 
so in imperial Rome. The business of Rome was to 



156 Aspects of Education. [28 

govern subject populations. A Roman statesman would 
have occasion for oratory in the senate, at the bar, in the 
governing of the province. Given the traditional inspira- 
tion which would be imbibed from a race of rulers, and the 
practice of public affairs, with which every Roman patrician 
would be familiar from his childood, the training of the 
■orator in its widest acceptation might be the only addition 
which was considered necessary. Humanism, however, 
lay but little stress on the public use of knowledge which it 
gave. It taught dead, not living languages. The greatest 
scholar might live secluded from the world, and, as his 
-erudition deepened, might become less fit either to influ- 
ence or to understand it. 

Realism was by its nature more closely connected with 
actual life; but that, too, might content itself with books, 
and the study of books produces book-worms. The 
rebellion against received opinions which followed the 
Reformation brought every thing into question, and the 
groundwork of education with the rest. As feudalism 
disappeared, there was more need of such an inquiry. In 
the middle ages the education of the castle had ex- 
isted side by side was the education of the cloister. The 
knightly arts of shooting, hawking, swimming, riding and 
other bodily accomplishments, were taught to the young 
page, as the seven studies of the trivium and quadrivium 
were taught to the young monk. As years went on, the 
idle governing classes were gradually subdued by aggres- 
sive instruction. The schools of the Jesuits were eminently 
fashionable, and it became necessary to appeal once more 
to nature. Men of the world and philosophers said, in 
giving what we call a training to the mind, "Let us not 
forget that nature has determined the quality, and a large 
part of the development, of the mind which we aspire 
to train. If we do our utmost, we can effect but little: 
let us be quite sure, that, in attempting to produce this 
small amount of good, we do not cause real harm. Let 



29] Aspects of Education. i^t 

us educate, not for the school, but for life. Let us see 
what inherent force will effect for the mind and character 
of which we think ourselves master." There is some trace 
of this reasoning in Rabelais ; but, although he is certainly 
an anti-humanist, he should be classed as a realist rather 
than as a naturalist. The three great naturalists in edu- 
cation are Montaigne, Locke, and Rousseau. Although 
their characters were very different, there is a strong 
similarity in their teaching. We will give a short account 
of the views of each. This is the more necessary, as. 
naturalism is now rampant in our public schools, but. 
its advocates and supporters have little notion to what 
philosophers they owe the principles which they enthusias- 
tically support. 

The contrast between monkish erudition and the train- 
ing for the world given in the castle of a wise noble is 
shown by Rabelais in the contrast between the clownish 
awkwardness of young Gargantua, and the modest self- 
possession of the page Eudaemon, who, "although not. 
twelve years old, first asking leave of his master so to 
do, with his cap in his hand, a clear open countenance, 
beautiful and ruddy lips, his eyes steady and his looks- 
fixed on Gargantua, standing up straight, on his feet, 
began to commend him with proper gesture, distinct pro- 
nunciation, and a pleasing delivery, in choice Latin," 
whereas all Gargantua did was to cry like a cow, and 
hide his face with his cap. Rabelais also lays great 
stress on bodily exercises, and shows that he considers 
the training of the body quite as important as that of 
the mind. 

The educational ideas of Montaigne are principally con- 
tained in two essays, — one on pedantry, the other on the 
instruction of children. The one deals with the objects, 
of education, the other with its methods. Montaigne says 
that the end of education is not to fill the head with, 
a mass of knowledge, but to form the understanding and 



158 Aspects of Education. [30 

the heart ; not to burden the memory of the pupil, but 
to make him better and more intelligent. Antiquity pre- 
sents us with well-educated statesmen and commanders, 
with philosophers fit for practical life. On the other 
hand, learning, which is only for show, is of no use to its 
possessor. If we only know what Cicero or Plato thought 
about a matter, we are merely the guardians of some 
one else's property instead of making it a possession 
of our own. We warm ourselves at our neighbor's fire in- 
stead of making one on our own hearth. We fill ourselves 
with food which we cannot digest. The most important 
object of education is independence. The scholar must 
be able to consider and to employ what he has learned 
in a hundred different ways. He must be taught to prove 
every opinion, submit to no authority as such. Learning 
by heart is no learning at all. Just as we cannot dance, 
ride, or fence without moving the body, so we cannot 
speak or judge with advantage without acting for our- 
selves. The mind must be supported by a healthy body. 
There must be no coddling or spoiling by foolish parents : 
the boy must be hardened to endurance and to pain. We 
are educating, not a mind and a body, but a man, who 
is compounded of the two. The pupil must be taught 
to mix with the world, to observe carefully every thing 
he sees. He must learn more from experience than from 
books. The character of great men is more important 
for him to know than the dates of their actions. The 
greater number of sciences which we are taught are of 
no use. The pupil must not become a bookworm, but 
all the conditions of his life — his walks, his meals, solitude, 
and society — must be made serviceable for his training. 
He must be taught to speak naturally, with strength and 
emphasis ; not by erudition, but by force of character 
and clearness of thought. For discipline we must use 
a kind severity, not punishment and compulsion. The 
school-life must be full of joy and cheerfulness. The 



31] Aspects of Education. 159 

most important thing is to excite a desire for study. 
Fathers should stimulate their children by their own 
example, and not keep them morosely at a distance. 
Montaigne says that he was first taught Latin by conver- 
sation, and he recommends the same course for imitation. 
He tells us that when seven years old he was entirely 
ignorant of French, but he was well acquainted with 
pure Latinity, and that without books and without tears. 
From this sketch we find that Montaigne's object was to 
educate the man of the world. He wished to bridge 
over the gulf between the gentleman and the scholar, 
which existed in his time ; but he would produce a gentle- 
man at any price, a scholar if possible. 

We cannot tell whether Montaigne had a direct in- 
fluence upon Locke, but there is no doubt that they agreed 
very materially in their views. The keynote of Locke's 
thoughts concerning education is a sound mind in a sound 
body. This, he says, is a short but full description of a 
happy state in this world. He that has these two has little 
more to wish for, and he that wants either of them will be 
but little the better for any thing else. The first thirty 
sections of his treatise are occupied with the training of 
the body. His maxims are summed up in the words, 
"plenty of open air, exercise, and sleep; plain diet, no 
wine or strong drink, and very little or no physic ; not too 
warm and strait clothing ; especially the head and feet 
kept cold, and the feet often used to cold water and ex- 
posed to wet." The next hundred sections are devoted to 
methods of education, but there is nothing in them about 
books. Virtue, wisdom, and breeding are to come before 
learning. These are to be taught more by precept than 
by example. We are to guard our children against {he 
evil influence of servants, and to rely particularly on the 
persistent effect of the home. Above all, we are to teach 
knowledge of the world. Much of the danger which 
surrounds young men arises from ignorance of the world. 



160 Aspect* of Education. [32 

A man forewarned is fore-armed. Breeding- must come 
before book-learning'. Teaching is for the purposes of life, 
and not for the school : Non scJiolce sed vitce discimits. 
The tutor you choose for your son should be a man of the 
world. Locke puts learning last, because he considers it 
as the least important learning. He says it must be 
had in the second place, as subservient only to greater 
qualities. Seek out somebody that may know how dis- 
creetly to frame his manners ; place him in his hands, 
where you may as much as possible secure his innocence ; 
cherish and nurse up the good, and, generally, correct and 
weed out any bad inclinations, and settle in him good 
habits. This is the main point, and, this being provided 
for, learning may be had into the bargain, and that, as I 
think, at a very easy rate. 

The subjects which Locke selects for learning are very 
characteristic. He begins with reading, writing, and draw- 
ing. He then goes on to French and Latin ; the latter to 
be taught in the same way as French, by conversation 
and without grammar. He then passes to geography, 
arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, chronology, and history. 
Then follows ethics, a certain amount of law, — chiefly civil 
and constitutional law, — rhetoric and logic, and natural 
philosophy. Great importance is attached to acquiring a 
good English style. Greek is omitted ; for Locke says 
that he is not considering the education of a professed 
scholar, but of a gentleman, to whom Latin and French, 
as the world now goes, is by every one acknowledged 
necessary. " When he comes to be a man, he can learn 
Greek for himself. What a small percentage there is, 
even among scholars, who retain the Greek they learned 
at school!" The education thus commenced is completed 
by dancing, music, riding, and fencing. Every one should 
learn one trade at least, if not two or three. Gardening 
and carpentering are especially recommended, but not 
painting. The pupil is to be well skilled in accounts and 



33] Aspects of Education. 161 

book-keeping, and his education is to be completed by 
foreign travel, which is to be deferred to an age when he 
can profit by it most completely. 

Locke is a great enemy of those specious and spurious 
studies which were so much affected by' the Jesuits. He 
is a declared enemy to Latin verses. "Do not," he says, 
' k let your child make verses of any sort ; for, if he has no 
genius for poetry, it is the most unreasonable thing in the 
world to torment a child, and waste his time, about that 
which can never succeed, and, if he has a poetical vein, 
it is to me the strangest thing in the world that a father 
should desire or suffer it to be improved. Poetry and 
gaming, which usually go together, are alike in this too, 
— that they seldom bring any advantage but to those who 
have nothing else to live upon." He does not care any 
more for music, " which wastes so much of a young man's 
time to gain but a moderate skill in it, and engages 
often in such odd company that many think it better 
spared." Locke here would differ much from Milton, who 
gave music a more dignified place in his programme. In 
conclusion, Locke tells us that what he has written is 
designed for the breeding of a young gentleman, but that 
he is fully aware that every one cannot be educated in the 
same manner ; that each man's mind has some peculiarity, 
as well as his face, which distinguishes him from all 
others ; and that there are possibly scarcely two children 
who can be brought up by exactly the same method. 

Although public schools in England educate their pupils 
very much according to the precepts of Locke, they 
probably do so unconsciously, and are very little aware 
whose example they are following. Many have heard 
of Locke's treatise on education, but few have read it or 
tried to understand it. Whatever effect he has had has 
been confined to his own country, and he cannot be 
reckoned as a great influence in Europe. Rousseau, on 
the other hand, burst upon the world with tremendous 



1 62 Aspects of Education. [34 

force. ' Emile,' although its teaching about education 
is so little precise and systematic, has made an epoch 
in educational systems, and is the parent of Pestalozzi, 
Froebel, and the most modern educators of the present 
day. The keynote of Rousseau's system is to educate in 
accordance with nature : he may therefore be regarded as 
the chief of the naturalists. It is true that his conception 
of nature was warped by the principles of his philosophy. 
He considered that man in his natural state, as he came 
from the hands of his Maker, was perfect, and that he has 
been spoilt by civilization. This idea was present to the 
mind of Rousseau in his very earliest writings. By what 
means, he asks, are we to bring back the child of nature ? 
How are we to form that strange character, natural man ? 
Our particular care must be to provide that he is not 
prevented from being natural ; we must not educate him 
for any particular function, but merely for the art of living. 
A man must be taught, above every thing, to lead the life 
of a man, and that must be done not so much by precept 
as by exercise. In the time of Rousseau children of the 
upper classes were brought up entirely in an artificial 
atmosphere. This, he says, we must do away with : great 
social changes may be before us, and we must prepare our 
children to meet them. The reformation must date from 
the very birth : mothers must take to nursing their own 
children. He says, speaking of the unnatural society of 
his own time, "Once let women become mothers again, 
and men will then become fathers and husbands." As the 
child grows, the advice of Milton corresponds with that of 
Locke. He is to be brought up in the fresh air of the 
country, set free from bands and swaddling-clothes, taught 
to endure pain and hardship and change of temperature, 
he is to be fed on very simple food. The father has duties 
as well as the mother. As soon as the child is old enough 
to be influenced by the father's education, it is wicked 
of him to hand him over to another. Rousseau passes 



35] Aspects of Education. 163 

the strongest condemnation on fathers who neglect their 
children, whereas he sets them the worst example by 
depositing all his children, as they were born, in the turn- 
ing-box of the foundling-hospital. Unfortunately many 
fathers are so occupied that they cannot give their children 
the minute attention which is necessary for their education, 
so that there is no remedy but to find a tutor who will as 
nearly as possible supply the place of the father. The tie 
between tutor and pupil is to be of the closest character. 
The second book of 'Emile' is concerned with the educa- 
tion of a child up to twelve years of age. The principal 
object of this education is courage. The child must learn 
to bear suffering, and to put up with tumbles and knocks, 
without uttering a cry. Strength, health, and a good 
conscience are the objects to be aimed at. Do not reason 
too much with children at this age : they must be made 
obedient by authority, and reason will come later. The 
great object of this early education is to lose time. The 
child is not old enough for good impressions to be firmly 
fixed : we must be content with averting bad ones. A 
child is to learn the elements of property, that some things 
do and some do not belong to him ; but of erudition he is 
to learn very little. At twelve years, Emile is scarcely to 
know what a book is. You have educated his character 
by strengthening his body: if he has the vigor of a man, 
he will soon have the reason of a man. During this age 
the process of hardening is to go on : he is to wear loose 
clothing, to go with his head uncovered, to lie on the 
damp grass when hot with exercise, sleep all night, to rise 
with the dawn, to know nothing but a hard bed, to fear no 
danger, to be accustomed to toil, unpleasantness, and pain, 
and to defend the soul with the breastplate of a strong 
body. Thus armed, he will not even be afraid of death. 
He is to be as much at home in the water as on dry 
land. He is to acquire arts which are found in the natural 
savage, the instinct of finding his way in dark places, of 



164 Aspects of Education. [36 

measuring distances with eyes and feet, and of beating all 
those of his age by swiftness of foot. He is to learn the 
piano rather than the violin. He is to draw from nature, 
to learn geometry rather by observation than by definition, 
to learn singing by the ear rather than by the notes. His 
appetite is to be the measure of his food. The sense of 
smell is to be educated with all his other senses. At 
twelve years old, he ceases to be a child : we are now to 
prepare him for manhood. We find that he is fresh, lively, 
open, and simple ; his thoughts are limited but elear ; he 
knows nothing by heart, but much by experience ; he has 
read more in the book of nature than in any other book ; 
his wit is not on his tongue, but in his head ; his judgment 
is better than his memory ; he only speaks one language, 
but that sensibly. Others may speak better: Emile will 
act better. He does not follow formulas and authorities, 
but in every thing which he says and does he is inspired 
by his own good sense. There is nothing artificial in his 
manner and bearing, but they are the true expression 
of his ideas, and the result of his disposition. In this 
language, and much of the same kind, Rousseau sketches 
the child of nature. One would think again, that, like 
Locke, he is depicting the English public-school boy ; 
but he could not have known any such, and the country 
gentleman who favors such institutions would rather follow 
any counsel than that of a dreamy revolutionist. 

The intellectual education which Emile receives be- 
tween the ages of twelve and fifteen is not less remarkable 
than his social training. Nothing is learned from books, 
everything from observation. The pupil is not asked to 
understand what he has taught, but to discover things for 
himself: for instance, as he takes his morning and evening 
walk, he is led to observe the course of the sun, how it 
rises and sets in different places according to the time of 
the year. In this manner he is lead to ask questions about 
the course of the heavenly bodies, the form of the earth, 



3/] Aspects of Education. 165 

and the calculation of eclipses. For the study of geog- 
raphy, no maps are placed before him. Starting from his 
home, he is led to make maps for himself. In this manner 
the natural desire of the child for knowledge is taken as 
the starting-place for learning, which in itself is never 
allowed to be a burden or trouble. Just as growing plants 
require not only light, but heat, so the growing man needs 
not only instruction, but amusement. Emile finds out 
by himself the existence of the meridian line and the 
peculiarity of the magnetic needle. He observes that by 
rubbing amber, glass, or sealing-wax, he is able to attract 
pieces of straw. In this way he learns the properties of 
positive and negative electricity, and connects them with 
the magnet. Going to the fair, he finds a conjurer who 
draws a waxen duck in different directions over a basin of 
water by presenting to it a piece of bread : he soon guesses 
that the bread contains a magnet, and is able to imitate 
the trick to the astonishment of the conjurer. The con- 
jurer takes his revenge by placing a stronger magnet 
under the table, so that the duck resists all Emile's efforts. 
The revelation of this trick is an avenue to still further 
knowledge. We see here that education is made not to 
depend on words, but on things. No formal instruction is 
given. Certain things are observed to take place, and the 
instruction lies in the conclusions which are to be drawn 
from them. In a similar way great importance is attached 
to what would now be called technical education. Emile 
is to have no books except ' Robinson Crusoe,' from whose 
example he is to learn how to supply all his needs. In- 
stead of reading, he is to visit workshops and practise 
handicrafts : he will learn more in an hour's work than he 
would in a whole day's explanation. Even trades are 
to be estimated by their usefulness. The blacksmith is 
placed higher than the goldsmith : the baker is worth the 
whole academy of sciences. Emile must learn a trade. 
What trade is best for him ? /Agriculture is exposed to 



166 Aspects of Education. [38 

too many casual losses. Many trades are merely the 
handmaids of luxury, and produce nothing worth having : 
others are unwholesome either from confinement or from 
the attitude in which they are practised. There are 
objections to the more violent trades, such as masons 
and smiths. The best of all is to be a cabinet-maker, 
which is useful, cleanly, and instructive. The modern 
development of technical education seems to have fol- 
lowed on Rousseau's lines, and to have placed working 
in wood in the first rank. 

Thus, when his boy's years come to an end, he posses- 
ses, not a great number of opinions and accomplishments, 
but the capacity for acquiring them. Such learning as 
he has, is thoroughly natural. He does not know even 
the names of history, metaphysics, morals, but he is accus- 
tomed unconsciously to reason about all of them. He is 
industrious, moderate, patient, and courageous. He does 
not know what death is, but, if necessary, he would die 
without a sigh. He demands nothing from others, and is 
under no obligation to them, but stands alone and inde- 
pendent in human society. He has no errors but those 
which are avoidable, and no faults except those from which 
no man is free. He has a healthy body, active limbs, a 
mind free from prejudices, a heart without passion. He 
has been scarcely affected by self-love, the first and the 
most natural passion : he has lived contented and happy, 
and free, so far as his nature allows. Do you think, asks 
Rousseau, that a child who has thus reached his fifteen 
years can have lost the years which have preceded? 

Rousseau's book produced a great effect throughout Eu- 
rope. It is said that Kant, the philosopher of Konigsberg, 
whose habits were more regular than the town-clock, 
suspended even his daily walk in order to read him, yet 
the practical teacher will learn but little from him. His 
principal effect lay in the strength by which he combated 
existing prejudices. When Rousseau wrote, education had 



39] Aspects of Education. 167 

become not only formal and artificial, but hollow and 
frivolous. The French revolution might have altered this 
by its unaided force, but 'Emile' still remains the book 
in which the ideas of the revolution about education were 
expressed with the greatest eloquence and vigor. 

What shall we say about naturalism in the present 
day? It is largely practised unintentionally. While dif- 
ferent studies are struggling for the mastery, the natural 
desire for games and open-air activity occupies the field, 
and claims more and more of the pupil's life. In the 
vast development of modern industries requiring capacities 
of all kinds, some educationalists have seen an indication 
that special courses of teaching are unnecessary or useless. 
Nature, they say, and the pressure of the world's business, 
arc the best teachers. How much skilled labor is de- 
manded by a railway? Who trained the pointsman, the 
engine-driver? Who directed the complicated lines of 
trains, following and meeting each other with lightning 
rapidity, yet never colliding except by a terrible catas- 
trophe? The teacher who follows the methods, either 
of humanism or realism, strives to make the best of the 
human mind intrusted to him. He wishes to develop its 
faculties to their highest point, to stimulate its natural 
capacity to its furthest limit. But when this is done, 
what guaranty have we that nature has any place for 
the instrument we have so carefully finished ? If every 
mind were developed to the fullest extent which its powers 
admit of yet a large proportion of such minds might re- 
main useless and barren, because they fitted into no place 
which human society supplies. Leave every thing to 
Nature, she will fashion the material better than you can, 
into the form in which she most requires it. This state- 
ment is a paradox ; and, indeed, natural education is in 
its essence paradoxical. It will always have advocates 
and apostles, especially in times when there appears to 
be a danger of over-refinement or over-pressure ; but the 



1 68 Aspects of Education. [40 

wise educationalist will turn to it as a repository of cautions 

and warnings rather than as an armory of weapons fit for 

fighting against the ever-present enemies of ignorance and 

sloth. 

THE ENGLISH PUBLIC SCHOOL. 

The term 'public school' is difficult to define. In Eng- 
land it has a meaning different from what it has in America. 
The American public school is a school supported by 
the community, and open to all the world. When it is 
said that public schools are the back-bone of the American 
system of education, it is implied that there exists all over 
America a number of schools affording a liberal education, 
either free or very inexpensive, accessible to all classes of 
the community alike. An English public school implies 
something exclusive and privileged. A public-school man 
lifferent from other men. The question as to whether 
a particular school is a public school or not, depends 
not upon its size or its efficiency, but upon its social 
rank. The American public schools are day schools : the 
English public school in the strict sense is essentially a 
boarding-school. Our public schools are few in number, 
confined to particular districts, costly, and very diverse in 
individual character ; yet it is said that they represent 
more completely than any other English institution the 
chief peculiarities of our national life. It is the public 
school that forms the typical Englishman : it is the ordin- 
al'}- boy of the upper classes who gives his character to 
the public school. We have to inquire, first, what are 
the English public schools? second, how did they come 
to be what they are ? third, what are their principal 
characteristics, and what relation do they bear to trie 
educational system of England ? 

When the English Government undertook, some twenty- 
five years ago, to inquire into the condition of our second- 
ary education, nine schools were singled out from the rest 
as pre-eminent. These were Winchester, Eton, Westmin- 



41 ] Aspects of Education. 169 

stcr, Charter House, Harrow, Rugby, Merchant Taylor's, 
St. Paul's, and Shrewsbury. Captain de Carteret Bisson, 
in his valuable work ' Our Schools and Colleges,' appar- 
ently disputes the right of the last three, and reckons our 
public schools at six. These six, between them, do not 
educate much more than four thousand boys ; and yet 
they are so typical of all schools which may have a claim 
to the title of public, that we may conveniently confine 
our consideration to them. Of these, Winchester dates 
from the fourteenth century ; Eton from the fifteenth ; 
Westminster, Harrow, and Rugby from the sixteenth, 
these three having all been founded within eleven years of 
each other ; and Charter House from the seventeenth. 
Winchester, the oldest of the schools, has probably kept 
its character most unchanged. It has never been a fash- 
ionable or a court school. It has maintained unimpaired 
its close connection with New College at Oxford. Nothing 
can show more clearly the strength and unity of English 
traditions than the fact, that, five hundred years after 
the establishment of the two foundations of William of 
Wykeham. they should stand in the face of England, 
holding the highest place, one as a college, and the other 
as a school. Eton, the next on our list, is confessedly the 
first of public schools, but it was not always so. During 
the first eighty years of the seventeenth century, West- 
minster undoubtedly held the position of pre-eminence. 
Dr. Busby, who read the prayer for the King on the 
morning of Charles I.'s execution, and who refused to take 
off his cap in the presence of Charles II., was the first 
schoolmaster of his time in England. But Westminster 
was faithful to the Stuarts : Eton supported the cause of 
the Whigs. Its supremacy, beginning in the reign of 
William III., continued in that of Anne, reached its height 
under the Hanoverian kings. George III., took a strong 
personal interest in the school. Eton boys walked on the 
terrace of Windsor Castle in court dress, and the King 



17° Aspects of Education. [42 

often stopped to ask their names and to speak to them. 
William IV., with boisterous good humor, continued the 
favor of his dynasty. He took the part of the boys in their 
rebellion against the masters, and he used to invite the 
boys to entertainments, at which the masters stood by and 
got nothing. During this period Eton became a political 
power in England. The upper school at Eton is decorated 
with the busts of statesmen who swayed the destinies 
of England, and who were the more closely connected 
together from having been educated at the same school. 
Chatham, North, Fox, Grenville, and Grey are among 
the ornaments of that historical room. Eton and Christ 
Church had the monopoly of education for public life, and 
the claim of the school to this distinction received its 
fullest recognition when Lord Wellesley, after a career 
spent in the most important offices of the state, desired 
that he might be laid to his last rest in the bosom of that 
mother from whom he had learned every thing which 
had made him famous, successful, and a patriot. Better 
known, perhaps, is the boast of his brother, the Duke of 
Wellington, that the battle of Waterloo was won in the 
playing-fields of Eton. 

Charter House, established in London, has held since 
its foundation a position very similar to that of Winchester, 
not of great importance in politics or fashion, but highly 
influential and respected. These four schools were pro- 
bably founded for the purposes which they have since 
succeeded in carrying out. Eton was always a school for 
the governing classes. Winchester and Charter House 
have received the uninterrupted support of the gentry 
and clergy of England. The history of Harrow and 
Rugby has been different. They have been lifted by 
circumstances into a position for which they were not 
originally intended. They were founded as local schools, 
— one in the neighborhood of London, the other in the 
heart of the midlands, — for the instruction, first of the 



43] Aspects of Education. 171 

village lads, and then of such strangers as came to be 
taught. But they have reached, owing to special circum- 
stances, a position equal to that of any of their rivals. 
Harrow emerged from obscurity in the middle of the 
eighteenth century, owing, as it is said, her success to 
head masters who were sent to her from Eton. Rugby is 
known throughout the world as the school of Arnold, who 
was head master from 1827 to 1841. Even before his time 
it had attained a high rank among English schools ; but 
he, followed by a line of distinguished successors, left it in 
scholarship and energy of thought at their head. Rugby 
and Baliol are to English education after the reform bill, 
what Eton and Christ Church were before it. This sketch 
will show how different the genesis of our public schools 
has been, and what various courses they have pursued to 
arrive at the same conclusion. 

We will now briefly trace the history of the education 
they aim at. Their curriculum is essentially classical : 
indeed, a public school man means, in common parlance, 
one who has been educated mainly in Greek and Latin. 
The two oldest schools, Winchester and Eton, founded 
before the Reformation, naturally began with monkish 
learning. There was a great deal of grammar and a great 
deal of church-going. The pupils were children, and were 
treated as such. Westminster was founded after, and in 
consequence of, the Reformation, and the breach with the 
old learning necessitated new arrangements. 

The author of the Protestant curriculum of public educa- 
tion was John Sturm, the friend of Roger Ascham, the 
head master of the great school of Strasburg during a 
large portion of the sixteenth century. A complete ac- 
count of Sturm's methods and organization is preserved, 
and we may be sure that its main outlines were adopted 
at Westminster and at Eton. Latin grammar and Latin 
style were made the principal subjects of education. The 
school was launched upon the full flood of humanism. 



172 Aspects of Education. [44 

The connection between a scholar in the narrow sense, 
that is, a man not of erudition but of finished taste and 
polished style, and the gentleman, was now fully estab- 
lished. Sturm was so despotic in the arrangements of his 
school, that he not only laid down what boys were to 
learn at each epoch of their career, but he forbade them 
to learn any thing else. It was as great a fault to begin a 
subject prematurely as to neglect it in its due time. 

Many of Sturm's arrangements are familiar to public- 
school men who are now living, but in the following 
century they underwent a further change. This was due 
to the Jesuits, who obtained their reputation partly by 
their devotion to the study of Greek, and partly by the 
pains they took to understand the individual character of 
their pupils. The Jesuits have probably done more harm 
to sound education than any prominent body of men who 
ever undertook the task. They had two objects in view, — 
to gain the favor of the rich and powerful, and to prevent 
the human mind from thinking. Humanistic education 
skilfully employed was an admirable instrument to this 
end. It flattered the pride of parents, while it cheated the 
ambition of scholars. The pre-eminence given in educa- 
tion to original Latin verses is typical of the whole system 
of the Jesuits. No exercise could be more pretty and 
attractive, or bear more clearly the outward semblance 
of culture and learning, yet no employment could more 
effectually delude the mind by an unsubstantial phantom 
of serious thought. The sturdy humanism of Sturm be- 
came corrupted by the graceful frivolity of the Jesuits, and 
in this condition public-school education remained until 
the efforts of a few obscure reformers, the genius and 
energy of Arnold and the growth of the new spirit in 
England, forced it into other channels. 

Arnold is typical of the new public school, but we must 
distinguish between Arnold and the Arnoldian legend. 
Like other great reformers, his name has become a nucleus 



45] Aspects of Education. 173 

round which the reputations of all other reformers, good 
as well as bad, have coalesced. The most prominent fact 
about Arnold is, that he was the first Englishman of quite 
first-rate ability who devoted himself to school-education. 
The traditions of Sturm and the Jesuits shrivelled up be- 
fore the manly touch of a teacher who was fit to be prime 
minister. After his career no one could despise the profes- 
sion of a school-master. What did Arnold actually effect ? 
He taught boys to govern themselves. He substituted 
for a system in which the governors were allowed any 
license on condition that they denied it to everyone else, 
one in which the responsibility of the ruler was rated 
even more highly than the obligation of the ruled. He 
also taught boys to think for themselves, to pierce beyond 
the veil of words into the substance of things, to see 
realities, to touch and taste and handle the matter of 
which thay had before only talked. Thus he produced a 
vigorous character and a manly mind. Rugby boys, on 
passing to the university, thought and acted for them- 
selves. They might be pardoned if in the first flush of 
enthusiasm they acted priggishly and thought wildly. But 
Arnold's teaching contained within it germs of much which 
he had never contemplated, and of which he would have 
disapproved. It contained the germs of the modern civil- 
ized life in schools, of which Rugby knew nothing in 
1840. Far, indeed, is the cry from that dim and crowded 
dining-room where boys, sitting at a bare table, wiped 
their knives on the iron band which surrounded it, and 
ate their meat and pudding off the same plate, to the 
luxurious arrangements of a modern preparatory school. 
It contained the germ of modern-side education. Arnold 
did not know that he was passing from Melanchthon to 
Comenius, and that the study of things once set rolling 
would soon displace the study of words. It contained the 
germs of a new confidence and friendship between boy 
and master quite as different from the sly sentimentality 



174 Aspects of Education. [46 

of the Jesuits as it was from the pompous neglect of the 
old-fashioned courtly don. It contained, alas ! in germ 
the subjection of the master to the boy in standard, tastes, 
and habits, which threatens to be the ruin of our public 
schools. It crystallized also the idea, which otherwise 
might have disappeared, that a head master must be 
of necessity a clergyman, and that no school could be 
properly conducted unless its chief sums up in the pulpit 
every Sunday afternoon what are supposed to be the 
spiritual results of the week's emotions. It stamped also 
with permanence, by a natural misunderstanding, that 
conviction of a head master's autocracy which prevents 
the formation in England of a profession of education. 
The history of English public schools since Arnold is 
merely the carrying-out under varying circumstances of 
the teaching of his example, and the development, some- 
times to disastrous ends, of abuses to which that example 
may seem to lend currency. 

A few words only are needed in conclusion as to 
the present and future of our public boarding-schools. 
Nothing has altered their character more than their growth 
in numbers, which has been the result of popularity. In 
Arnold's time no public school except Eton exceeded 
three hundred boys. Arnold and his contemporary head 
masters might boast with truth that they knew every boy 
in the school by sight, his habits, his capacity, his friends. 
A school thus governed by one man, and penetrated by 
his influence, differed not only in degree, but in kind, from 
a school which has of necessity become a confederation. 
In a public school of Arnold's date games were still 
amusements. Formerly neglected and ignored by peda- 
gogues, they became the nurse of every manly virtue 
when a more sympathetic eye was turned upon them. 
Tom Brown's School-days represents the heroism of the 
forties, — the high-water mark where boyish enterprise and 
independence reached their height under the influence of 



47] Aspects of Education. 175 

manly recognition. During the last quarter of a century, 
games have become a serious business, instead of the 
wholesome distraction of public-school life. They are 
organized as elaborately as the work. Masters are ap- 
pointed to teach them like any other branch of study: 
they form the basis of admiration and imitation between 
boy and boy, and the foundation of respect and obedience 
between boy and master. It is difficult to keep large 
numbers of boys, with only five years difference in their 
ages, quiet and wholesome without a large development 
of games They have been admitted to their full share 
in the school curriculum. A public boarding-school is no 
longer a place where, amidst much liberty and idleness, 
there reigns a high respect for character and intellect, and 
where the ablest boys are left ample room to fashion each 
other and themselves. It is a place where the whole 
life is tabulated and arranged, where leisure, meditation, 
and individual study are discouraged, and where boys are 
driven in a ceaseless round from school to play-room, from 
play-room to school, regarding each as of equal impor- 
tance, and bringing into the most delicate operations of 
intellectual growth the spirit of coarse competition which 
dominates in athletics. 

It is difficult to say what changes public boarding- 
schools are destined to undergo, or whether in an age 
in which education is so much extended a system so 
expensive and so exclusive can continue to flourish. The 
last few years have witnessed the growth of large public 
day-schools, and any development of national education 
would be certain to increase their number. Although the 
Arnoldian system is little applicable to them on its best 
side, yet they are of necessity free from most of the abuses 
to which that system has given rise. An idea may grow 
up that the home is, after all, the best place for child- 
ren, and that children are the best safeguard of a pure 
and happy home. Should English society in its new 



176 Aspects of Edncatio7i. [48 

development prefer a kind of education which is the 
normal type of all countries but our own, which improved 
communication makes it easier to adopt, we shall still 
have public schools of which we should be proud : they 
will continue to represent our best national qualities, but 
they will be very different from the public boarding- 
schools of the past. 



MANUAL TRAINING 



First Lessons in Wood Working 

By ALFRED G. COMPTON, 

Professor of Applied Mathematics in the College of the City of New York, and 
Instructor in charge of the Workshops of the College. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Less 


ON. 


Lesson 


I. 


Cutting Tools ; Knife and Hatchet ; 
Cross-cutting. 


XIV. 


II. 


Knife and Hatchet continued ; Split- 
ting, Whittling and Hewing. 


XV. 


III. 


Strength of Wood. 


XVI. 


IV. 


The Cross-cut Saw. 


XVII. 
XVIII. 


V. 
VI. 


Shrinking, Cracking and Warping of 

Timber. 

Working-sketches. 


VII. 


Working-drawings. 


XIX. 


VIII 


Making a Nailed Box ; Laying out the 
work. 


XX. 


IX. 


Hammer and Nails ; Putting a Box 
together. 


XXI. 


X. 


The same continued ; Taking apart. 


XXII. 


XI. 


The Jack-plane. 


XXIII. 


XII. 


The Smoothing-plane. 


XXIV. 



XIII. Back-Baw and Bench-dog. 



The Chisel ; Paring and Chamfer- 
ing ; Characters of different Woods. 
The Chisel continued; Through 
Mortise ; Brace and Bit. 
The Chisel continued ; End Dove- 
tail. 

Dove-tailed Box ; Laying out the 
work ; Cutting the Dove-tails. 
Glueing ; Hand-screws ; Putting the 
Box together. 

Finishing a Dove-tailed Box ; Plan- 
ing End-wood. 
Fitting Hinges. 

Making a Paneled Door , Isometric 
Drawing. 

Paneled Door continued ; Mortise. 
Fitting a Panel ; The Plow. 
Chamfering a Frame ; Finishing 
with Sand-paper and Shellac. 



12nio, Cloth, 188 pp. Price for Examination or Introduction, 30 cts. 



"The Alphabet of Manual Training." 

White's Industrial Drawing— Revised. 

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THEY TEACH 

First, to make complete, intelligible working drawings to scale, of any ordinary object, 
whether requiring one, two, three, or more views. 

Second, to draw accurately in free-hand perspective any elementary object or group of 
objects, giving clear ideas of their forms, proportions and positions, and indicating lights 
and shades. 

Third, to refer to its proper school or period any ordinary type of Historic Ornament, 
or to draw with sufficient precision typical examples of any of the leading schools. 

Fourth, to compose original decorative designs possessing strength, beauty and char- 
acter, and in harmony with the purpose for which they are intended. 

The Set for Examination, sent on receipt of $1.50. 



IVISON, BLAKEMAN & CO., Publishers. 

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The Prang Course of Instruction 
in Form and Drawing. 

This course is the outgrowth of fifteen years' experience 
devoted to the development of this single Subject in public 
education, under the widest and most varied conditions. 

It differs widely from all the so-called " Systems of Draw- 
ing" before the public. 

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The Methods of teaching and the Work of pupils are 
different. 

The Models, Text-books, and materials are on an entirely 
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The results in Schools are widely and radically different. 

It is the only Course based on the use of Models and Objects 
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cises in Manual Training. 

THE PRANG COURSE has a much wider adoption in 
the best schools of the country than all the "Systems of 
Drawing" put together. 

More than two millions of children in public schools are 
being taught Form and Drawing by The Prang Course. 

PRANG'S NORMAL DRAWING CLASSES. 

These classes have been established for giving the very 
best kind of instruction in Drawing through home study 
and by correspondence. All teachers can, through these 
classes, prepare themselves to teach Drawing in their schools. 

g@-Send for Circulars in regard to PRANG'S COURSE 
OF INSTRUCTION IN FORM STUDY AND DRAW- 
ING, and also in regard to PRANG'S NORMAL DRAW- 
ING CLASSES. Address, 

THE PRANG EDUCATIONAL COMPANY, 

BOSTON. 



3 

MASSACHUSETTS 



Institute of Technology, 

BOSTOIT, IMI.A.SS- 

FRANCIS A. WALKER, President. 



The Institute of Technology offers courses, each of four years' duration, in 
Civil, Mechanical, Mining, Electrical and Chemical Engineering, in Architec- 
ture, Chemistry, Physics, Natural History and General Studies. 

THE COURSE IN NATURAL HISTORY 

is intended (1) for those preparing for medical studies who desire a thorough 
grounding in physics, chemistry, (including general, qualitative and sanitary 
chemistry,) the modern languages, and biology (including general biology, 
botany, zoology, physiology, comparative anatomy, embryology and bacterio- 
logy) ; (2) for those who wish to become naturalists (geologists, botanists or 
zoologists) or specialists in sanitary science, and desire at the same time 
to secure a liberal scientific education; and (3) for those who desire a general 
education in natural science, or who intend to fit tl emselves to become 
teachers in the natural sciences. 

The two main divisions of the course are Biology, treating of plants, the 
lower animals, and man (living things) ; and Geology, dealing with the his- 
tory of the earth, rocks, minerals, fossils, etc. (lifeless things). To one of 
these, chosen as a major subject, the student chiefly devotes his attention, al- 
though in any case much time must still be given to the other, minor, sub- 
ject. Beginning with a substantial foundation of chemistry, physics, 
drawing, and the modern languages, the subjects peculiar to the course are 
gradually introduced, although history, political economy, and literature 
receive much attention as essentials, or as auxiliaries to the scientific studies. 

The intimate relations existing between physics, chemistry, and biology on 
the one hand, and the medical sciences — patbology, hygiene, etc. — on the 
other, make a course like this peculiarly valuable as a preparation for the 
professional study of medicine. To this end the student of biology is made 
familiar not only with the essentials of physics and chemistry, but also with 
the comparative anatomy and physiology of the lower animals, especially 
the vertebrates. 

Opportunities are offered for extensive and practical laboratory studies in 
the biological, geological, and mineralogical laboratories, while unusual 
advantages are offered by the proximity of the library and museum of the 
Boston Society of Natural History. 

For field-work in zoology, botany, mineralogy, and geology, the vicinity of 
Boston affords rich opportunities in its long and accessible shore-line, varied 
geological features, and well-explored botanical fields. 

The tuition fee, including everything except breakage, is $200 a year. For 
catalogues and information, address, 

JAMES P. MUNROE, 

Secretary. 



AND ) J - w - 

KINDERGARTEN g ™ . ( s < f?SF 

GTJSTAV E. STECHERT, 

IMPOKTEK OF 

Foreign Books and Periodicals, 

828 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 

Catalogues of Second-hand Books will I English, French and German Monthly 

be sent gratis on application. Bulletins of New Books. 

nDAwrwjrc /Leipzig, Hospital Strasse 10. 

BKAWLHUS. \London, 26, King "William St., Strand, W. C. 

WOMAN'S EXCHANGE. 

TEACHERS' BUREAU (For both Sexes). 

Supplies Professors, Teachers, Governesses, Muslclats, etc., to Colleges, Schools, 
Families and Churches, also Bookkeepers, Stenographers, 
Copyists and Cashiers 10 Business Firms. 
Address, MRS. A. D. CULVER, 329 Fifth Avenue, New York. 

COLLEGE for the TRAINING of TEACHERS 

9 University Place, New York City. 



The Circular of Information for 1888-89 contains the 
list of Professors and Students, Course of Study, information 
concerning the requirements for Admission, Scholarships, 
etc. 

SEND FOR A CATALOGUE 

OF THE . 

Only Professional School for Teachers 

IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Address, A. W. Tyler, Dean, 

9 University Place, New York City. 



OF THE 

9 

Industrial Education Association 



_ ,, _ , Entered at the Post Office at New York ) Pb1C e, |1.00 i «*». 
VOL. I. NO. 5. City as second class matter. ) •» 



Aspects of Education 

A Study in the History of Pedagogy 



BY 



OSCAR BROWNING, M. A. 

Kings College, Cambridge. 



EDITED BY 
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Ph.D., 

President of the Industrial Education Association. 



NEW YORK. 

• Industrial Education Association. 
september, 1888. 

Twenty Cents. 



College for the Training of Teachers. 

9 UNIVERSITY PLACE, NEW YORK CITY. 



school, but a tmnatg co lei "sh?^ I 8 7!?5* Jt i8 not a «>mi 
passing the requireS^fat^ 

struetion of^pSluMtoS^f^'r' fi^i'? 1 8ClenCe aud the co » ! 
the philosopL Sh tor, t^K*^' thetmt °ry «' civilization and 
the model Ihlol, ^^r^M^T^?' obser f ^ and practice in 
trial art, domestic ««,£ , 7^ t0 tminin ^ iu indus - 
In all these depTrtments S ESSE? 1 * rawm Z> and wood-working, 
the supply, aufSet an L.lXnf J" tamed teachers far exceeds 
Entrance HnfflSffJtefl^ii?*^ l° r f°?! peteQt teachers. 

l6 fni£^^ ^ ° n SePt6mber 18 ' 

to aid deserving students ° C ° lar8hipS have been established 

FACULTY. 
eKST. m '" w b »"». »■»■. "™^< „, ProIe .. or of lh , Hlgior , „„ lMtlta(- of 

LECTURERS, 1887-8 

£rof h. M. Leipz lg e r> New York. 

Prof li "? U1 ^- ¥ aUj , uloml - Now Yf "k- 

Principal W. M. Giffi'/Tw^N J a " d N0m81 8chool8 > Person, N. J 

Br' D # , 5S B,U S', 0rtl,,mbta Oou4S 

i>r. l). k Dodge, Columbia College. 

ARTHUR W. TYLER, A M 
Dean of the College for the Training of Teachers 
9 University Place, New York City. 



EDUCATIONAL MONOGRAPHS 

dent of Johns Hopkins Univer 8it ? n M'> D ,-S- GlLMAN > ^L.D., P re si- 
School, by H. H. B ELFJE ^ phV T. U f Ttainin S and the Public 
Training School. 24 pp. ' ^ h - D '' Director of the Chicago ManuS 

II. Education in Bavaria bv <5 r> 8 ™Ject. 

III 'S2 G ? ai 5 8ofLo ndonIn8titate HILn> MAGNU8 ' Erector of the City 
«*. fnysical and Industrial Train- r 

IV M^^^^^tory, Elmi», T?* ° f Criminal *. by D B . H. D. W E v 
av. wane Hopkins, Teacher h„ r> , 

v. £230* Aspws of ; d r Pw - Im - w - s —' - ™- 

Mao Kin g^ College, Cambridge. UCatlon - b y Osoab BBowKmo, M. A. of 

3'ir- * -a * *- a. ^ of the NormaI Sohoo 

The Function of the Pnhti,. «... . . "*-"uoi, 

versityof Michigan. SCh0Ol > b * P *>*- W. H. P ArM! , of the „„, 

P* 8 °' Hi5 ' M - * ^ E — C— , of H.,™, D ni Pe , 

Jf? ft™" M**** °- — w. P 1BTO , of Cook 

extent of the M an ,i,i t> • • v,w Ua . 

-^a^ls? by PM " a M - w — 

Eje tauqua T. C. C. g ' by Cables Baenabd, Esq., of Chau- 

Thr/ewS The"" S ItSt'^ L* P™^ ^ CaB —' of London 
D^^.^KA^ HENEYM - Le — . Dire°ct: 
Th University CnCe M the Schools . by Mas. E MMA P. E wi NG , of Purdue 

^?n„S -J n?-^sr^Hi?^ 2 cent Btamp - 



™™. one and twi^ent stamps 
ARTHUR W. TYLER, A. M 

Dean of the College for tke Training of Teackers, 

9 University Place, New York City. 



CROSBY'S V ITALIZED PHOSPHITES 

From the Nervs-giving Principles of the Ox-brain and 
the Embryo of the Wheat and Oat* 

For twenty years has been the standard remedy with 
physicians who best treat nervous and mental diseases. 

It aids in the bodily, and wonderfully in the mental, 
growth of children. There is nothing that so well de- 
velops the growth and regularity of the teeth and assures 
sound and wholesome teeth for after life. For the cure 
of nervousness and brain-fatigue, nervous dyspepsia and 
sleeplessness, it has been used and recommended by 
Bishop Potter, Bishop Stevens, President Mark Hopkins, 
President Roswell D. Hitchcock, Sinclair Tousey, Bis- 
marck, Gladstone, and thousands of the world's best 
brain-workers. 

It is a Vital Phosphite and not a Laboratory Phosphrtlc. 

56 W. 25th St , M. Y, For sals ty Druggists, or sent by mail, $1. 

Bmfaib 

ACID PHOSPHATE, 

(LIQUID.) 
A preparation of the phosphates that is readily assimilated by the system. 
Especially recommended for Dyspepsia, Mental and Physi- 
cal Exhaustion, Indigestion, Headache, Nervousness, Wake- 
fulness, Impaired Vitality, etc. 

Prescribed and endorsed by Physicians of all schools. It combines well with 

such stimulants as are necessary to take. 

It makes a delicious drink with water and sugar only. 

For sale by all druggists. Pamphlet Free. 

RUMFORD CHEMICAL WORKS, - - PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

{©-BEWARE OF IMITATIONS.,^ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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